Berserk and NeverEnding Story similarities

[Glyph]

Hi all :)

This is my first post, as I've just joined this forum.
I'm a new Berserk fan, freshly reading the Deluxe versions, currently at Slain emerging from troll entrails and holding Guts.
Needless to say, this is really a one of a kind journey that will stick with me forever.

But of course, every idea is somehow inspired by another idea and all great artists stand on the shoulders of giants from the past.
I'm sure it's been discussed to death, all the influences on Berserk, but I'm not really sure anyone has noticed this particular one.

Youtube randomly offered this video to me the other day and the first part about NeverEnding story hit me like a stone.

The phrase "Do what you wish."? But that's exactly what IoE said to Griffith!
The concept of a moonchild that will save everyone? That's what we speculate the moonlight boy was supposed to do in Berserk!
The world being called Fantasia? But that's what the merged world is called in Berserk!

If we entertain the thought of these concepts (that also inspired the NeverEnding Story) being an inspiration for Berserk, then we might also guess what would Miura's ending actually be.
The age of the crowned and conquering child. Not bound by dogma or old religion. A child who rules by self determination. That would round things up perfectly with all the causality setups in Berserk. A new era where people stop being led by causality and follow their own paths. That would probably make the God Hand lose all power and make IoE redundant.

In NeverEnding story Fantasia is powered by human dreams. It exists because people imagine it. And the evil force that threatens its existence is called Nothing.
"People have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So, the Nothing grows stronger."

It's not really a 1:1 but I personally see a lot of similarities here.
Please take a look at the video and tell me what you guys think :]

Also, thank you for being an awesome community, not swayed by the horrible butchering by the continuation. Reading Reddit posts would have one believe everything is still fine and going strong. This is the only place I can go to, to get quality info.

 

[Walter]

Hello and welcome!

I'm sorry, not gonna watch the video. These aren't really my thing. But the phrase "Do as you will" was popularized by Aleister Crowley, who founded Thelema, where the full phrase is: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."

As for Fantasia, that one's easy enough, because it's been around for thousands of years. It's based on the Latin phrase phantasia, which simply means fantasy.

I think Miura drew on a lot of different sources to create the world of Berserk. And though I don't think Neverending Story was one of them, Michael Ende likely drew from some of the same sources. Miura seems to have wanted to go back to the basics for what made fantasy a powerful genre. That's why for example the magic in Berserk isn't like modern series, but more closely related to how purported practitioners described doing magic, and why his depictions of creatures like trolls, ogres, or more specifically elves is closer to their folklore origins than the ones that Tolkien popularized.

 

[Aazealh]

Hi all :)

This is my first post, as I've just joined this forum.
I'm a new Berserk fan, freshly reading the Deluxe versions, currently at Slain emerging from troll entrails and holding Guts.
Needless to say, this is really a one of a kind journey that will stick with me forever.

Hi and welcome, glad to have you here. Enjoy your first read!

But of course, every idea is somehow inspired by another idea and all great artists stand on the shoulders of giants from the past.
I'm sure it's been discussed to death, all the influences on Berserk, but I'm not really sure anyone has noticed this particular one.

Youtube randomly offered this video to me the other day and the first part about NeverEnding story hit me like a stone.

Well, Miura talked at length about the works he liked and that inspired him over the years, but he's never mentioned The Neverending Story. Modern fantasy stories largely derive from the same folkloric roots, so it's not surprising there might be some similarities between them. That doesn't mean one has to have inspired the other.

It's also not a mark of high esteem to assume an author would reuse elements from an old movie while being 25 years into his own career. That's a frustratingly common misconception, but it's just not how it works. The fact it stems from people's desire to guess how Berserk might have ended doesn't make it any better, because Miura wouldn't have simply reproduced something else.

The phrase "Do what you wish."? But that's exactly what IoE said to Griffith!

More importantly, it's the God Hand's only precept for the apostles, as told by Wyald in volume 11. And more famously, it's the one rule of the Abbey of Thélème in François Rabelais' book Gargantua, published in 1534 (a book that was later illustrated by Gustave Doré, an artist Miura admired). Rabelais' work, in turn, influenced Aleister Crowley, which Walter mentioned above. It's a well-known phrase and so this really doesn't mean much.

Furthermore, as whatshisname mentions in his video, this isn't in the movie, it's only in the book, which is markedly different from its adaptation. In fact the movie took such liberties compared to the source material that Michael Ende (the author) sued the filmmakers.

Among these liberties is the fact they changed the name of his fictional world. In the original German it's called "Phantásien" (it's translated as "Fantastica" in the English edition, but kept like the original German in the Japanese version). It comes from "Phantasie", which you could translate as "fantasy" in English, although it also simply means "imagination". That's why the author called his world like that. The Neverending Story is all about the power of imagination, and how it can help kids and adults alike better deal with their lives.

So these two examples don't even work with each other, unless you're assuming Miura both watched the English version of the movie, then read the English version of the novel and borrowed elements from each (which he used many years earlier). It doesn't make sense.

The concept of a moonchild that will save everyone? That's what we speculate the moonlight boy was supposed to do in Berserk!

Hold your horses. The empress in The Neverending Story isn't a savior, she's the ruler of that world of imagination. She ages not in years but in names, and that is why she periodically needs someone to give her a new name. "Moonchild" is just the latest one Bastian gives her. Meanwhile, Guts and Casca's son was not named yet in the story (because Miura died prematurely), and that is why readers refer to him after the title of the first episode in which he appeared: "The Boy in the Moonlight". That title is merely a poetic way to describe his first appearance, it's not a name.

These two things don't really relate to each other besides sharing broad concepts like "names" and "the moon". By the way, maybe I'm mistaken but if you're a new reader and are currently at Guts' encounter with Slan in the Qliphoth, you haven't even read those scenes yet. If so, you should probably finish reading the manga before you start speculating about its ending.

The world being called Fantasia? But that's what the merged world is called in Berserk!

"Fantasia" is also the title of a Disney movie, so-named itself because a fantasia is a type of music composition. It's not an uncommon name at all. And it relates to fantasy, which is why Miura chose it as a name. The kanji for it in Japanese means "the world created by fantasy". It's not unlike how he called Griffith's capital city "Falconia".

Oh, and here's a doozy for you: in the Japanese dub of the movie, they kept the name as "Phantásien" (ファンタージェン), so there's no correspondance anyway.

If we entertain the thought of these concepts (that also inspired the NeverEnding Story) being an inspiration for Berserk, then we might also guess what would Miura's ending actually be.
The age of the crowned and conquering child. Not bound by dogma or old religion. A child who rules by self determination. That would round things up perfectly with all the causality setups in Berserk. A new era where people stop being led by causality and follow their own paths. That would probably make the God Hand lose all power and make IoE redundant.

I mean both stories could be said to share common roots in European folklore, like most if not all fantasy stories. But that's not a basis from which we could speculate on how Miura would have wanted to end Berserk. And to address your point specifically, I really don't think it was meant to end with Guts and Casca's son becoming the ruler of the world, thus thwarting the God of the Abyss and its minions. In fact I don't see how that could work.

In NeverEnding story Fantasia is powered by human dreams. It exists because people imagine it. And the evil force that threatens its existence is called Nothing.
"People have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So, the Nothing grows stronger."

It's not really a 1:1 but I personally see a lot of similarities here.

Actually I don't see any similarities here. Fantasia in Berserk is a return to the "chaos of ancient times" where fantasy creatures coexisted with humans. Then what happens is human societies collapse all over the world, to the point where Falconia becomes mankind's last bastion.

Please take a look at the video and tell me what you guys think :]

I'll be completely honest with you: that video sounds like exactly the kind of regurgitated slop I despise.